vote

Green dress or blue dress?  (please, I beg of you, ignore the positively glowing white legs!)

pizza and birthday cake

Stuffed. Full of delicious Pagliai's pizza and wonderful birthday cake THAT NIC MADE! Hehe, I shouldn't act so surprised. In fact, I am more surprised that I was able to pretty much keep my mouth shut and hands off during the whole cake baking process (except when asked of course). What a wonderful golden birthday.

Barb made 26 of these candles for Nic to hide all around our house this morning. I woke up and instantly laughed at the first candle I found, just knowing that this was the 'secret gift' Barb had given to Nic last Sunday. I laughed throughout the morning as I kept finding these in the strangest places - my bathroom drawer, several cupboards, the fridge, my car... Thanks for making my morning, Barb!

By the way, I should mention that Nic wins the prize for making the best birthday cake of the year. Nic - 1, Kier - BIG FAT ZERO. Did I ever post a picture of the cake I made for Nic...??

(for the record, but mainly just to make myself feel better, the cake Nic made did overflow too! Just not to the disastrous levels that mine did...)

baby shower for ben and debbie

You all know Ben and Debbie, right? So you know that they decided to be too cool for school and ditched Iowa for Alaska a few months ago. Well, they are expecting their first kid in less than a month...July 17th! Today, their moms decided to throw an online baby shower for them since most of us just can't pack up and head to Alaska for the day. Well, we decided to have a baby shower in their honor last night with a few friends...complete with games! lol Weird, right? A baby shower without the mom-to-be in attendance?

So, Ben and Debbie - this one's for you! We all hope that you have a wonderful baby shower today, complete with lots of emails and phone calls from all those who love you. We all miss you and wish you the best of luck for these last few weeks as a family of 2, and even more luck when you welcome little Kiera (am I right...?!) into the wonderful tundra of Alaska. :) Hope you received the gift from the 6 of us (gmail) and are able to get a few necessities before your little one arrives.

lots of love - Nic, Kier, Joe, Laurie, Emma & Elyse

Guess how round Debbie's belly is!

I think I might have won...unless your tummy is really this round,

But I am pretty sure that Elyse had the most fun playing this game.

Next up - the "guess what kind of candy bar is melted into this diaper to look like poop..." game. (Nic wanted me to ensure you all know that this truly is just a melted Hershey's bar, and not a real poopy diaper, although it was suggested by Joe that we just use the 'real thing'.)

I think this was the first (and probably only) baby shower Nic has attended. Lucky him.

Looking at all the stars.

Elyse - still a happy baby...for about the next five minutes.

No bonfire/baby shower is complete without some guitar.

Laurie's friends came down to visit for the night! Lucky them..."what? you guys are having a fake baby shower? You guys are weird..."

Look - Elyse is not crying!

Too many baby shower games for Elyse and Joe...time to go.